Feeling Weak, Feeling Strong (Blog #284)

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Lately I’ve backslidden on my sleep schedule, staying up until almost sunrise and waking up in the afternoon. But because I’m getting up early (by anyone standards) tomorrow to run around, I set my alarm for before noon today. Like, maybe I can ease myself into this. Y’all, it’s awful. I’ve been ready to go back to bed all day. Now it’s five in the evening, and I’m working feverishly to finish the blog before I teach dance in an hour and a half. Since I’ve got to go to bed early tonight–I’ve just got to–this may be more of a sprint than a marathon. Some days all you can do is show up.

This afternoon I finished reading a book by Laura Day about intuition and how it relates to healing. It’s due back at the library tomorrow, and I’m finding that having a deadline is a good way for me to get things done. Anyway, the book mentioned something about feeling “comfortable and proud” in your body, so I’ve been chewing on those words, since they’re not the first adjectives I think of when describing how I feel in my skin, but I’d like them to be. I guess sometimes I feel that way, and I know I feel that way more than I used to. I’d just like to feel that way more often–comfortable and proud.

Hum.

Whenever I get a sinus infection, my go-to adjective for describing the way I feel is “weak.” All my energy is just up and gone. It feels hopeless, like all my vitality has been buried next to Jimmy Hoffa, never to be found again. Much to my non-amusement, “weak” has become a kind of joke in our family, a word we toss around whenever one of us feels bad–like, poor, poor, pitiful me.

As a healing exercise, the book I finished earlier suggested remembering a time when you felt strong, almost unable to contain yourself, absolutely powerful. This isn’t exactly easy to do when you feel like someone’s unplugged you from the wall, but I assume that’s exactly the point, to reconnect with the best possible version of yourself. More than anything else, the exercise made me realize that weak isn’t simply a word I use to describe myself when I get sick. I mean, I don’t put it on my business cards or even think that word on a day-to-day basis, but I often feel that way, like I’m unable to affect change in my life, unable to move forward, unable to heal.

Just bringing my attention to this fact has made me realize that it’s not true. Like, I can look at my life and list dozens of places and situations in which I’m able to get things done, make progress, be effective. And yet still that feeling is there. I guess I get hung up on the things that aren’t happening yet, the things that aren’t healing. I start comparing myself, giving all the praise I have away to others and saving little for myself. This is something I intend to work on, gently if possible. I just looked up “weak” on Google, and whereas the first definitions is “lacking physical strength and energy,” the second is “easily damaged.” Synonyms are frail, feeble, delicate, fragile. This is good information to have, since I don’t feel THAT way at all. Even when my energy is low and things aren’t happening as I’d like them to, I don’t feel that kind of weak. Rather, I know there’s a part of me that’s eternally strong. That’s the part of me I want to spend more time with, the part that’s not only confident, but also comfortable and proud, simply happy to be alive, sure that it can weather any storm.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Perhaps this is what bravery really is--simply having run out of better options, being so totally frustrated by the outside world that all you can do is go within.

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How Hope Begins to Grow (Blog #280)

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[This morning my sister sent me some family photos she took while she was in town, so I’m sprinkling them throughout today’s blog, even though they aren’t “on topic.” The last one is my favorite, since it didn’t really turn out but is completely authentic, at least for my nephews.]

Yesterday my dad started coming down with a cold–a common cold. Since I’m both already sick and a hypochondriac, I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours absolutely paranoid that I’ll catch whatever he’s got, wiping down every surface he touches with soap and water, hearing him cough and imaging his germs traveling through the air ducts and into my susceptible sinus cavities while I sleep. We’re all going to die keeps running through my head. Now all I can think about is whether I need to get out of the house and buy some more vitamins, search the internet for additional home remedies, or just pray to god I live long enough to see my new doctor next week.

This is me WITH a therapist.

It seriously blows to wake up and start the day overwhelmed. Even before my feet hit the floor this morning, I was obsessing about my physical health, wondering if I’ll ever feel like myself again or if this is just my “new normal.” Then I started worrying about money, being single, and male-pattern baldness, every problem for which I don’t have an immediate answer. Stumbling into the kitchen, I noticed I was low on groceries, which only further added to my anxiety, since groceries cost money. Finally I had this thought–Would you just calm the fuck down, Marcus? Why don’t you pour yourself a cup of coffee AND THEN see what the world looks like?

As it turns out, the world is better caffeinated, and after breakfast I decided to take a closer look at some of my “problems,” meaning I organized a stack of paperwork that’s been piling up since the middle of last year. Specifically, I sorted through medical bills, since I went to the emergency room a few months ago for a skin infection and my insurance didn’t pay for a dime of it. Well, I spoke to the hospital a while back, and they said they’d put in a request to charity services and that I should hear something within thirty days. So far, all I’ve gotten is more bills, so this afternoon I figured I needed to call them again. But before I did, I reread the letter the same hospital sent me earlier this year, the one that granted me financial assistance with the sinus surgery I had almost a year ago.

Y’all.

I don’t know how I missed it before, but the letter said that ALL hospital services received through the middle of November last year would be covered at–um–one hundred percent, meaning the emergency room visit should be covered too. Optimistic, I called customer service, spoke to the nicest lady, and told her what was going on. Praise god and all the saints, she confirmed that the services would be covered, that there was only confusion because the two places I received treatment (for the sinus surgery and the skin infection) were in different regions of the country and therefore in different computer programs. But no problem, she said, we’re getting it sorted out, and please ignore any further bills.

“Okay,” I said. “I can do that.”

And get this shit. Then she started updating my profile, asking about my current (and basically nonexistent) income. “I’m confused,” I said. “If the previous assistance covers the emergency room services, why do you need additional information?”

“Oh,” she said, “that’s because the financial assistance program expired for you in November, so I’d like to re-up your enrollment in order to cover future medical costs.”

Wow.

How do you even respond to kindness like this? My first thought was to say, Holy crap, I don’t like girls, but would you go on a date with me? But then I realized you don’t have to sleep with every person who does something nice for you, so I simply said, “Thank you so very much. I really appreciate all your help.”

After the good news earlier today, I started to worry again, to re-focus on my health and other financial problems. (It’s a bad habit.) But then I remembered that in my journal this morning I told the universe I needed a break, that I could use a win. Well, obviously, I got one. (That was fast.) So now I’m trying to simply enjoy it, to bask in the relief, to show some damn gratitude for one big problem solved.

Like, thank you, Jesus.

But seriously, I can’t tell you what a shot in the arm this news is. Having worried about this medical bill for weeks now, it’s really a load off. My therapist says this is how you start believing in good things again, how hope begins to grow. You live most your years disappointed, really convinced that life isn’t on your side, that things will never get better. But however slowly, case-by-case, life starts to prove you wrong. Despite all your worrying and thinking This situation is impossible, miracles start to show up. You begin to believe you’re not in this all by yourself. Moved to the point of tears, you think, Healing really is possible.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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All the while, we imagine things should be different than they are, but life persists the way it is.

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The Power of Perspective (Blog #189)

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It’s one in the morning, and my friends Justin and Ashley just left. For about two hours we’ve been in the hot tub, and I’m currently limp as a wet noodle. The harvest moon shines full in the night sky, I’m not sure where the cats are, and bed sounds really great about now. But I just started the music I always blog to, downloaded the pictures I plan to use tonight, and here we go. As for where we’re going, I’m not exactly sure. (Insert long pause here.) Some nights this is easier than others.

Oh look, that’s a hundred words. Almost done.

I woke up this afternoon in the middle of a dream about the hard drive I dropped and broke last year, the one with pretty much my entire life on it. In the dream I was in Van Buren, and there was a guy with bad teeth who said he could fix the hard drive pretty cheap. Apparently he was also a hair dresser, and I was sort of apologizing for how messy my hair was. Anyway, I woke up in the middle of the dream because someone was ringing the doorbell. Well, the doorbell where I’m staying is really loud and sounds like one of those buzzers you hide in the palm of you hand that vibrates when someone shakes it, and the guy wouldn’t leave it alone. It felt like being woken up by a cattle prod.

I wasn’t impressed. Still, despite the fact that I was half-naked, I stumbled downstairs, opened the door, and tried to be pleasant.

Recently I’ve been watching the Netflix series GLOW, which stands for Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. My friend Marla turned me on to it, and it’s about some ladies in the 80s who are in the process of becoming professional wrestlers. Anyway, the last episode I watched had a scene where one of the girls ends up making out with the hot, feathered-hair pizza delivery boy, so I was sort of hoping something similar would happen when I answered the door this morning. Well, damn it, no such luck. It was just a guy (that was not my type) who’d brought the paper from the yard to the porch and was looking for some work.

So that made two of us that were disappointed.

You know, sometimes the universe is a real bitch. As if the doorbell incident weren’t enough, I discovered after breakfast that one of the cats had thrown up again, this time on my friend’s backpack. Well, being the dutiful house sitter that I am, I took the backpack outside, shook off the vomit in the yard, and came back in only to discover that the cat had also puked down the side of the dryer, sort of on a trashcan but not in it, and all over a piece of wrought iron furniture, the kind with all the loops and curly q’s perfect for holding throw up. Less than an hour before I discovered this disaster, I was raving on Facebook about a friend’s newborn he’d dressed up like a little lumberjack. I thought, Oh my god, I want one. But then as I was on my hands and knees cleaning up vomit, I thought, No–no I don’t.

After The Great Feline Stomach Upset of 2017, I went to the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum, something I’ve been meaning to do since they opened in their new location four years ago. I’ve been skimping on taking my inner artist on dates lately, so I figured today was as good as any. Having never been to the museum, I didn’t know what to expect and was pleasantly surprised to find a photograph collection on loan from the Smithsonian. The collection was a project by the Environmental Protection Agency and documented life and environmental conditions in the 70s. So it was mainly about pollution, but also about fashion, drugs, and personalities.

One of the photographers for the project referred to his camera as a passport, saying, “It takes you into the lives of people you might otherwise never meet.” This is one of the things I love about reading and writing. I can pick up a book written twenty years ago, and it’s like it’s happening today. If I walk away from that book with one new idea, one little thing to chew on, I’ve been changed in some way. Even if I never meet the author in person, our minds have met, and the world is different than it was before. I think this is the power of story, and whether it’s done through the lens of a camera or words on a page, I love that no good story ever ends.

For the last few minutes I’ve been looking at the above picture, a photograph of–I’m assuming–an Italian man who owned a restaurant. Had I known him, I think I would have liked him. There’s an exercise taught in some writing classes where you take a picture like this and make up a story about it, so my mind has been running wild with possibilities–what time he got up every day, how many kids he had, how he might have gone outside for smoke break after the lunch hour rush and ended up meeting a photographer.

You can’t change what happened, but you can change the story you tell yourself about it.

My therapist says that the natural state of the universe is neutral. I take this to mean that things happen–someone rings your doorbell and wakes you up, a cat vomits, whatever–and those are just facts like photographs. Where we come in, however, is we experience or look at those facts and tell a story about them–this is disappointing, this is disgusting, this is a place I’d like to visit. In so doing, we take something neutral and turn it into either a personal positive or negative. This, of course, is the power of perspective. Maybe you can’t change what happened, but you can change the story you tell yourself about it.

When I think about the hard drive I dropped last year, the first word that comes to mind is “memories.” Because the dream had to do with fixing the hard drive and it happened in Van Buren (where I’m currently living), I imagine it was about changing my perspective about my past and current life, healing, and restoring the parts of myself I thought were lost. As for the messy hair and bad teeth, these are both things I’m pretty vain about, so they simply remind me that healing doesn’t always look like you think it will. If you’d told me a year ago I’d make my biggest internal strides by living back at home and writing a daily blog, I would have told you to get lost. As it turns out, it’s been the very way I’ve found myself. So I’m reminded tonight that underneath all of our stories about life, there’s a wisdom that not only puts a full moon in the sky and changes our fashion choices over the years, but also changes us. Often we think, I’m not exactly sure where I’m going, yet somehow, we arrive.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Boundaries are about starting small, enjoying initial successes, and practicing until you get your relationships like you want them. 

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(In)dependence (Blog #154)

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Ever since college my hands almost always go numb when I run for more than fifteen minutes. It’s not bad enough to make me stop, but–you know–it’s annoying. It’s like whenever your legs fall asleep while you’re sitting on the toilet. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Anyway, I’m a curious person–or as my therapist recently said, a nosy Ned–so for the last fifteen years I’ve asked probably a dozen chiropractors, massage therapists, and other body workers, “What’s up with my tingly fingers?” The answer? Crickets.

Every. Single. Time.

So this morning I had a massage from my friend Gena, and while she was working on my chest and arms, I casually mentioned the sometimes-numbness in my arms. “That makes sense,” she said. “Your neck muscles are tight, and there’s a nerve underneath them that runs down your arm. Plus, when you run, you bend your elbows, and that plays a part too.” Genius.

Now was that so hard?

I love how you can spend fifteen years looking for an answer to a problem, and then–really without warning–one just falls out of somebody’s mouth–like, no big deal. And by that I mean, I don’t really love that. I mean, I love that I have an answer now, but I don’t love the fact that life is pretty much like being dropped in the middle of board game, never being kindly informed of the rules, and somehow being expected to win. Whether it’s trying to heal an impossible problem or trying to figure yourself–let alone anyone else–out, life is not like an infomercial–three easy steps. Rather, it seems most successes are hard-won and long waited for. Honestly, I have a real problem with this setup. I’m putting it on my list of “things I think could be done differently,” in the event God ever asks for my good opinion.

I realize it could be a while before this happens.

Tonight in improv class we played a game called Sound Effects, which involves two people providing dialogue and gestures and two other people providing noises. Ideally, all four people are sort of working together, even though two of them are off stage. Maybe the scene is a battlefield, and one person covers his head like a big explosion has gone off, but the person making noises utters a real soft, “Dink.” Then the person on stage has to respond appropriately and change directions.

Honestly, I can’t tell you how difficult this class is turning out to be, mostly for the simple reason that I don’t always like to work with others. I’m a control freak. There, I said it. You know, when you work in a group, you sort of have to trust that the other person is going to do their part. Plus, you have to do yours. Sometimes that happens–sometimes it doesn’t. It’s like, sometimes you can ask a question and get an answer, and sometimes you’re just met with a blank stare. It’s just the way life is.

I hate that. (One more for the list.)

Tonight my emotions got the best of me, and I went out for chocolate cake. “You know what,” I told the waitress, “I’m gonna need some ice cream with that too.” Ugh. It was delicious. I feel fat now, but I paid good money for the elastic waistband in these shorts I’m wearing, so I guess it’s like finally getting a return on my investment. My friend Marla says, “Feelings only last a few minutes unless you feed them,” but I think she meant that in a metaphorical sense, and not in a literal–feed your feelings chocolate cake–sense. Because feeding my emotions tonight actually seemed to shut them up for a while.

When I got home tonight, I lay (and yes, that’s correct grammar) on the futon, read a Sherlock Holmes novel, and stretched. For a short while I did a yoga pose called Half Hero (pictured above), which is an accurate description of what I feel like on a day-to-day basis. Not quite Full Hero status. Full Hero involves sitting on your shins with your feet folded under, then reclining on your back. It’s basically a quad stretch, and if your quads are tight (like mine are), it hurts like hell and is a good way to start a conversation (and by that I mean an argument) with your knees. Well, Half Hero is just one leg at a time, and that’s all I can currently muster without completely wanting to jump out of my skin.

Gena told me today that everything on my right side is tight. This wasn’t a newsflash to me, but she said it was a wonder I wasn’t walking in circles. When I talked about always getting headaches on my right side, she said that pain shows up in our weakest spot. So tonight I’ve been thinking that emotionally, my weak spot is trusting other people. That’s why I have trouble relaxing on a massage table. That’s why I get nervous in group projects. There are plenty of psychological reasons for this, and I’m sure the case could be made that those reasons have made me the independent fella I am today. (Americans love independence!) BUT, the truth is that no one gets through life alone, and no one person has all the answers. That’s why we have to keep asking for help, trusting that one day someone will have the solution we’re looking for. We–I–have to be willing to work together. Sure, like stretching a tight muscle, it might be uncomfortable at first, but one day–maybe when you lease expect it–things relax, the pain subsides, and healing seems possible.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Even a twisted tree grows tall and strong.

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